Vatican Gives Beatles Second Dose of Forgiveness

YouTube The Beatles - More Popular then Jesus

The Vatican PR machine is taking a new avenue of global discourse this week.

On the front page of the L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s official newspaper, the Papacy has officially forgiven the Beatles for saying ‘they were bigger than Jesus’ and also for putting out ‘mysterious messages, that were possibly even Satanic.’

After all, writes L’Osservatore Romano, “what would pop music have been like without the Beatles?”

The newspaper eventually offered its forgiveness for these comments in a 2008 article, when it ascribed Lennon’s remarks to “showing off, bragging by a young English working-class musician who had grown up in the age of Elvis Presley and rock and roll and had enjoyed unexpected success”. via The Guardian

My friend tells me that this was one giant misunderstanding in which American kids began burning Beatles albums. Indeed, he’s correct. Fires in the streets!

In their endless statements to the American press, the Beatles insisted that the comment was a metaphor. They could have said they were more popular than TV but clearly they wouldn’t have gotten nearly the publicity.

If the Vatican forgave the Beatles in 2008 I’m not sure why they thought another dose of forgiveness was important in the middle of their widening sex scandal. At a time when today’s headlines are Pope’s ivory tower past adds to his detachment via AP, and it’s even the top headline in my Yahoo mailbox, perhaps the Vatican is swinging into high gear.

Thank you, Your Excellency. Catholics worldwide will sleep better knowing that once again, the Vatican has forgiven the Beatles for being such dirty rotten scoundrels. Anne

Photograph: Vincenzo Pinto/AFP